In seasonal spirit, let’s sing along with Ian Dury – and find some reasons to be cheerful in 2017.
One is the resurgence of council-run services. Reading buses, run by Reading borough council and UK bus operator of the year, will prove in 2017 as it did this year that municipal enterprise works – and expose the dogma of those, including the transport secretary, Chris Grayling, who won’t allow local authorities to compete as transport providers.
Then there’s Rotherham council, its functions now being restored as it moves along the path to recovery after significant failures were discovered earlier this year with its taxi licensing procedures, which contributed to child sexual exploitation. With assistance, patience and, now that former communities secretary Eric Pickles has disappeared, an absence of grandstanding from the Communities and Local Government Department, troubled councils can recover. Tower Hamlets, too.
Blackburn has just won high street of the year – a perfect example of local authorities putting effort and imagination into restoring and sustaining town centres, despite the impact of budget cuts and online retailing.
Across England, further productive conversations will take place between neighbours about sharing and collaboration, such as Barnet and Harrow’s joint legal service HB Public Law, which has just been renewed for a further five years. It runs alongside Brent and Harrow’s joint procurement. Such arrangements are all the more durable when done voluntarily and not under financial duress.
Similarly, in West Yorkshire, the Midlands, London and elsewhere, council staff will do further good work with colleagues in NHS trusts, the police and security services on the Prevent strategy [pdf]. There has been criticism, but delicate, difficult judgments will be made daily about following up clues and indicators of actual or potential radicalisation.
Other positives for public services in 2017 include further progress on equality and diversity. We’ve been critical here of Sir Jeremy Heywood, the head of the civil service, for failing to give voice to the professional identity of public managers, not ony in Whitehall but across the public service – an identity that needs to be strengthened and affirmed as austerity bites and individual ministers trample on established convention.
But Heywood has undoubtedly flown the rainbow flag and, with permanent secretary colleagues including Richard Heaton at the Ministry of Justice, and Melanie Dawes at the CLG, he has strengthened pillars of respect and equality.
Mention Dawes, of course, and the glaring gender imbalance at the top of Whitehall becomes all the more striking. When Sir Martin Donnelly steps down from international trade, will a woman follow him? How good it would be if the successor to Sir Amyas Morse as comptroller and auditor general were one of the several eminently well-qualified female public finance leaders. Local government has shown the way, with Joanne Rooney, chief executive of Wakefield council, crossing the Pennines to succeed Sir Howard Bernstein at Manchester and Jo Miller, chief executive of Doncaster council, assuming the presidency of Solace, the organisation for local authority chief executives.
Let’s not get carried away. Prevailing financial gloom won’t disappear. The coming year won’t see pay restraints or pension caps lifted. Brexit will pile pressure on both the domestic policy agenda and resources available to the rest of government.
Disastrous projects, such as contracting offender management, are nowhere near being rescinded, though a review due to be completed in the spring gives justice secretary Elizabeth Truss a pretext. The future of autonomous local government in Scotland is none too bright.
In England, whether or not local authorities use the earmarked council tax increments so generously approved by the prime minister to fund marginal improvements in social care, the 2017-18 financial year looks likely to be the toughest yet for them.
Yet beneath the surface significant changes in the conduct of government will continue, albeit at moderate pace. Socitm’s “smart places” will get a bit smarter. Kevin Cunnington will be a pragmatic leader of Government Digital Service, making progress with GOV.UK Verify (allowing the public to create a single identity to access state services) and GOV.UK Notify (which speeds up messaging about applications and inquiries).
Departments will share (a bit) more information, but overblown claims about the possibility of “transforming” public services will fall as flat as ever.
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